House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Sunday strongly criticized Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for not allowing a vote on a measure that would allow offshore drilling. While acknowledging that Pelosi can prevent such a vote, Blunt said the Democratic leader would have to live with that decision, which he argued “does not make sense to the American people.” “When we’re talking about offshore, we’re talking about 50, 100, 200 miles offshore,” Blunt said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “Nobody's going to see that. This is an environmentally safe thing to do.”

Earlier in the program, Pelosi had stated in a pre-taped interview that she would not allow such a vote.

“We’re going to exhaust our other remedies in terms of increasing supply in America,” Pelosi said. When pressed on the issue, she added that she has “no plans” to allow such a vote.

Instead, she accused congressional Republicans of having blocked the Democrats’ initiatives to address the country’s energy problems and again called for opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease the cost at the pump.